First Robotics Competition
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience—and a lot of fun. In 2005 the competition will reach close to 25,000 high-school-aged young people on close to 1,000 teams in 30 competitions. Our teams come from Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, the U.K., and almost every U.S. state. The competitions are high-tech spectator sporting events, the result of lots of focused brainstorming, real-world teamwork, dedicated mentoring, project timelines, and deadlines.
Colleges, universities, corporations, businesses, and individuals provide scholarships to our participants. Involved engineers experience again many of the reasons they chose engineering as a profession, and the companies they work for contribute to the community while they prepare and create their future workforce. The competition shows students that the technological fields hold many opportunities and that the basic concepts of science, math, engineering, and invention are exciting and interesting.
(from http://www.usfirst.org)